The Quill

Chapter One

"Harry, come on!" Ron urged. They were in Diagon Alley, buying their new school things. Ron and Hermione were in the lead, heading for Flourish & Blott's. Harry stumbled behind them, hardly noticing the chattering crowd around him and not even taking a look into the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, where a new broomstick called Thunderbolt lay magnificent and gleaming on a pillow.

He hadn't been the same ever since Sirius' death. There were times when he wished he could just lay down and die. After a few weeks at the Dursleys, he had been allowed to stay at The Burrow for the rest of the holidays. Harry had been stunned that the Dursleys let him go that easily. They had wanted to go on holiday, and of course they hadn't wanted Harry with them, and obviously they couldn't have left Harry in their house on his own. Mrs. Figg had also refused to take him, she had said he was too much of a burden to her. The Dursleys, of course, had fully appreciated her opinion, and so they had grumpily agreed on letting him go to the Weasleys. But for the first time in his life, Harry wasn't happy about that. At Privet Drive, he had at least been left alone, but now Mrs. Weasley kept fussing about him, urging him to eat when he really didn't feel like it and coming to Ron's room when he sat there crying over Sirius. She always wanted to consolate him and the twins tried! to cheer him up by apparating from one corner of the room to another or stuffing the garden gnomes into the clothes of Ginny's old dolls. Mr. Weasley kept bombarding him with questions about Muggles, but Harrys answers were always short and didn't satisfy Mr. Weasley at all.

Someone to his left was saying, "I'd like to see that big, ugly face of his when he finds out!" It sounded only too familiar. With his next step, Harry bumped into the Ron's and Hermione's backs, who had stopped to look back at the speaker. Harry turned around, too, and saw a bright blond head bobbing away in the crowd, flanked by two heads the size of water-melons and a good foot above the first. It was Malfoy and his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle.

"Did he just talk about Hagrid?" said Hermoine, the eyes full of suppressed anger as she stared after Malfoy.

"Probably," replied Ron. "Who else has a 'big, ugly face' according to him?"

"I'd really like to find out what he's up to," said Hermione, taking a step after Malfoy. "Let's follow him, Ron, Harry, okay? I hope it's something illegal, I'd love to turn him in for something..."

They turned around and followed their enemies. It was not too hard, because of Malfoys bright head and because Crabbe and Goyle were so big. Slowly, the crowd thinned, and Harry, Ron and Hermione were able to move a little closer. When Malfoy and his friends went around a corner, Ron and Hermione stopped dead. Again, Harry bumped into their backs. "What's the matter?" he asked after he had straightened his glasses.

"Knockturn Alley," said Ron, pointing at a wooden sign on a wall. "I'm not supposed to go there..."

"Neither am I," Hermione added, "ever since you got lost there before or second year."

Malfoys head rounded another corner. "I'll do it," said Harry. "Nobody would care less than the Dursleys." And he set off, followed by the nervous glances of Ron and Hermione.

The shops in Knockturn Alley were shabbier and far more frightening than the shops in Diagon Alley, and also the customers didn't seem friendly anymore, but threatening. Many of them wore hoods and didn't show their faces.

After Harry had turned the corner, he saw Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle again in the distance. They were standing in front of a shop window, then they entered the shop. As Harry moved closer, he saw that it was Borgin & Burkes, the same shop where he had accidentally arrived when he had used Floo Powder for the first time. He moved to the opposite shop, pretending to be interested in the shop window, and waited for the three Slytherins to come out again.

The shop seemed to be a stationer's. There were several notebooks lying on torn black velvet in the window. Some of them had fangs or tentacles on them. There were also many quills, even one that looked as if it came from a hippogriff, and ink in every imaginable colour and function. Invisible, poisonous, auto-cursing... One quill drew Harry's attention: It was long, thin and black and had an unusually sharp point. It was painfully familiar... Professor Umbridge owned one of these quills, and she had used it in detentions. Harry knew very well how it worked, for he had experienced it more than once in his fifth year.

He hesitated. He recalled the feeling of the sharp quill slicing open his hand... It had been painful, but also oddly relieving. He lay his hand on the door-handle, took one deep breath and pushed the door open.

Inside, dust began to tickle his nose. It was quite dark, and Harry could make out towering black shelves in the back of the shop.

"Ah-choo!" Harry sneezed. One second later, a tall man was standing before him, eyeing him suspiciously.

Harry hastily flattened his fringe over his scar. Better not let the news spread that Harry Potter had been seen in a shop in Knockturn Alley...

"Er... hi," he said awkwardly. "I'd like thatblack quill from the window, please."

The man chuckled. "Ah, very well, very well... I suppose you want to give it to some little friend of yours?" He went to the window.

"Er... yes." Harry tried an evil grin, but failed.

The man returned with the quill and went to his desk, where he put it into a long black box. "You know how it works, I expect?"

"Oh, yes, I do."

"One Galleon and nine Sickles."

Harry pulled some wizard money out of his bag and handed it to the tall man. He noticed his long fingernails, which were filed pointy. Harry stuffed the box under his jacket.

When he left the shop, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were nowhere to be seen, but Harry didn't bother. He pressed the black box excitedly to his side while he made his way back to Diagon Alley.

Hermione and Ron where still there, sitting on a low wall in front of a small shop which sold potion supplies. When they saw him coming out of Knockturn Alley, they jumped to their feet.

"Harry, where have you been?" squeaked Hermione, ran to him and flung her arms around him. "We were so worried... Oh, Harry!"

Ron was standing rather awkwardly behind Hermoine. "What about Malfoy?" he asked.

"Lost 'em," Harry muttered. He was keen on coming back to The Burrow. "Let's get our books then, shall we?"

Ron and Hermione agreed, and so they set off for Flourish & Blotts.